Maybe You Think Killing
by ComicRoute
Summary: ...makes things easier. But it doesn't. It just makes people dead." That was the first thing that Renegade learned from Wally West. (AU in which Dick was taken in by Slade, who works for Lex Luthor, instead of Batman. Wally has no super powers.)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hey guys! Posting an A/N at the beginning for once, eh? I just wanted to say that the reason I haven't been posting lately is because I was working on this.**

**It's probably the thing I'm most proud of on my profile right now. I am insanely happy with how this turned out. Everything is already written, and I'm going to be posting chapters every three days until it finishes (three chapters total; 40 pages, 15.3K+ words). Please ****_please _****drop me your thoughts! The amount of work I put into this to crank it out in a few days is awfully strange, considering I haven't done it for anything else before. Reviews would be insanely appreciated!**

**I love you all and I sincerely hope you enjoy!**

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_Please just let me_

_Walk alone_

_My minds outgrown_

_All the foolish ways of making grays turn black_

_I'm still drowning_

_Let me leave_

_My breath is all I know_

_And even that won't last_

_-Drowning, Singularity_

There were plenty of things that Dick had learned throughout the years. How to escape from a sewage system infested with crocodiles while wearing only a leotard, for example (and escaping naked, but that was an expected side effect). How to figure out if a person's neighbour is a super hero. Where to kick on a window while flipping through the air in order to break it. How to hack the government database from the local library. None of his lessons, however, taught Dick how to _trust._

So, simply put, Dick didn't know how.

Which was probably why he didn't at all.

He cackled excitedly, adrenaline coursing like a drug through his veins as the flexible acrobat leaped from the roof, landed, and rolled onto a small stair platform in the alleyway beside it. He quickly crawled through the window. Moments later, up above and silhouetted by the moon, a thief with pointy ears screeched in frustration.

Really, Catwoman should have known better. Slade's apprentice would never join a shady partnership. Particularly not one with a sly criminal such as herself. Dick clutched the green glittering necklace in his fist, one of its unclipped ends poking out from his clasped fingers. For a well known lawbreaker of Gotham City, she was awfully silly. Sill-fully? Sillfully. Catwoman was plain sillful.

"Renegade, report," a voice crackled and rasped into Dick's ear. The mic was much too loud, and with a scowl resulted in having a low man's voice blasted into his ear, Dick promptly turned down the volume of his comm. link.

"All clear. Coming back now," he replied quietly. Dick squinted at the room he was in. The window he had slipped through, thankfully having been open, was positioned right behind a long couch. Inching around the couch, Dick could see a small living space accompanied also by a coffee table, a loveseat, a television, and a proudly glowing Christmas tree. Dick instinctively crouched behind the couch, resenting the light of the Christmas tree that easily cast his shadow.

Though, it really was a beautiful Noble. Dick's mask obscured his ability to see the lights in their full variety of colours and sharpness, but the range of ornaments on it made it feel almost infinitely loved. He could smell the tree, too. It was natural. It caused Dick's mood to rise, even - and then dramatically plummet as the feeling it gave was unwelcomed.

"Mama?" a soft girl called, and the small patter of feet on wooden flooring sprang to Dick's attention. "Mama? I can't sleep. Can I open the presents now?"

Dick took all of a second to remark that the girl was English. If her family was English and such a young child still had an accent as clear as that, they must have moved to Gotham fairly recently. What a strange thought. Who would ever want to move to Gotham?

"Julie?" a woman groggily questioned from within the hallway still behind the girl's shadow, which Dick could see from where he crouched. The girl spun around, bewildered.

"Mama?" she asked uncertainly.

"I'm here," the woman answered, her voice clearer than before. She must have stepped out into the hallway. "What's wrong?"

"I heard something."

"There's no one there," the mother insisted. The floorboards creaked as she walked forward, though Dick couldn't see her. According to the shadows, she picked up the little girl and was swaying as she stood to adjust her grip. "How about you sleep with me for tonight?"

"Can I open the presents?"

"No, you have to wait a few more days."

Was it really almost Christmas? Dick frowned as he tried to think about the day. Dick knew that Christmas was significant to him, though he was left feeling lost and confused every year when all the commercials announced the 25th and it didn't feel like anything but another day. Another, slightly _busier _day. Dick couldn't pinpoint what he expected, really.

He decided to be normal and walked out through the front door when the woman closed the bedroom door behind her. He was sure that the family wouldn't appreciate an assassin in their living room for the holidays.

A few days later, Dick found himself in front of a Christmas tree again. There was a German Advent calendar on the table beside the fireplace's empty stockings, and the chocolate in day 20 was popped out. With a glance at the grandfather clock on the wall, Dick noted that it was peeking into the morning hours, marking the date as December 21th. Soon, Dick's busier days would start as criminal masterminds with a yearning for dramatic theatrics would assign Slade and his apprentice targets for the holiday season.

Really, Dick wanted to just sit and be calm instead. He didn't care about the targets - they were easy. He would simply crouch, as always, in a roof or in an alley or in their kitchen while grabbing a few snacks. Then, he would lift his gun - and he would shoot.

Dick had learned that his hands and his eyes never missed. It was the push of a trigger or the snap of a neck and Dick would be done. Sometimes, he couldn't be bothered enough to even look at the victim's faces. They probably deserved to die, anyway. Why else would they be targeted? In the worst case scenario, they were horribly unfortunate and at least their unfortunate traits wouldn't be added to the gene pool.

None of Slade's haunts had Christmas trees, and Dick had only been passing by on his way back to the mercenary's haunt in Central when the gleaming of one tree caught his eye through the window. The tree was different, easily recognisable to Dick as a Nordmann. Nordmanns were native to the area surrounding Armenia, last Dick checked, and his last international mission had him marking the environment to hold himself on higher ground than his political opponent. Dick found that he liked the interesting change, not having seen that type of Christmas tree in a while, as he sat on the beige carpet with what could only be the family cat curled up beneath its branches.

Oh, and there was someone sleeping on the couch.

Dick wasn't all that concerned. He felt too monotone, too melancholy to care. He also knew that if the kid awoke to find the stranger sitting there, he could either knock him out, jump out the window, or kill him. Whichever was faster. Killing the kid might have been a benefit, too, because it would stump the police off of Dick's trail with the random, unpatterned hit-and-run. Actually, as Dick stared at the golden lettering of a large ornament, he was starting to seriously consider the idea.

The boy was curled up underneath a soft, blood red blanket, and there was an empty cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table. The TV was playing, but the volume was so low that it didn't disturb him. However, it was definitely disturbing Dick, and so the acrobat promptly turned the entire thing off.

The lump of blanket shifted at the loss of sound. Dick didn't even flinch. The boy was probably going to settle back down any second.

Except, he didn't.

"Uuugh," the groan emerged from the couch, and Dick turned with an amused expression to face the furniture. He was in no rush to leave. The scene, at least before the boy stirred, was comforting. The warm colours cast by the Christmas lights made the winter rain of Central feel far away. The figure rolled restlessly. "Gah," the boy said in a huff as he momentarily stilled, drawing out a long sigh. Dick watched from the foot of the couch, at the end where the boy's feet were, as his eyelashes fluttered to the ceiling. Sadly, he was at too odd of an angle to spot the boy's eye colour.

The blanket, which must have been suffocating, was tossed off the boy's face and kicked onto Dick as the kid swung his legs to touch the ground.

"Coold, coldcoldcold," the boy started muttering to himself as Dick sat absolutely still, a relatively natural position for him, and stayed camouflaged by the unexpected blanket. There was the patter of footsteps and Dick recognised the sound of the boy's feet tapping on tile. He had probably reached the kitchen.

Dick decided that he should have left. Except that he didn't want to.

Then again, Dick did a lot of things that he didn't want to.

But Slade wasn't there.

Only, Slade was still waiting for him to return.

Dick threw the blanket off of himself with a scowl.

"_Holy shit!" _was the startled exclamation as Dick turned in surprise to see the barefooted boy gaping at him from the head of the kitchen. Without the blanket restricting his appearance, Dick immediately took note of his loose gym shorts, green Nike t-shirt, and gravity-defying ginger hair above horrified green eyes. His freckles were scarlet red underneath the multi-coloured light of the tree.

Dick rose his eyebrows at the boy, smirking, only waiting for his next action. He was probably going to call the police. Dick had already noted where all the phones of the house were, and there was one within the boy's reach, just at the corner of the counter behind him. No rush. Dick would be long gone before they got there, anyway.

"What the _hell _are _youuu _doing in- my-y…," the boy accused nervously, a finger pointed at Dick's face. Dick smirked, but his eyes narrowed in confusion behind his mask. Didn't the kid ever learn to call the police if an infamous assassin watched him sleep? Apparently not.

Maybe Dick should have stopped mentally calling him a kid. If anything, Dick was the kid - the 'kid' had to be at least half a foot taller and a year older. But he really couldn't help it when, mentally, Dick was the older one. He had to be. He had seen more death than many people did in their lifetimes.

He had been victimised by death. He had been trained by death. He had _caused _death.

And everything that went in between.

Dick barely bit back a snarky comment. The atmosphere was tense, and like with all tense atmospheres, Dick couldn't help but want to make it into a faux light-hearted one. A smirk, an expression, a witty comment, a sadistic pun. Thick tension was certainly fun to weave. But he held back because he had decided not to needlessly kill the boy as he normally did as a punctuation mark for his comments.

Dick really didn't like blood, if he was honest. He liked dead bodies even less. But it was his job, and jobs required practice.

The boy squinted. "Are you… you're Renegade…?" he trailed off, then paused. "No, you're not. Duh, if you were Renegade, I'd be dead." And just like that, the kid relaxed, walked straight up to Dick, and plopped back onto the couch with a water bottle.

It took everything Dick had not to gape. Even if Dick _wasn't _Renegade, he was a _stranger in the kid's house._

If 'stranger danger' no longer existed, Dick decided that he was definitely behind times. "So, what's your name?" the kid asked casually, waving his water bottle as if it were a glass of wine before he took a large gulp. "I'm Wally, but you probably already knew that. Who are you? Person from school? One of my parents' friends' kid sleeping over without me knowing? Nice get-up, btw."

Renegade almost struggled to remain in his straight-backed posture, his head barely turned to regard Wally. "Renegade," he deadpanned.

"Riiight," Wally snorted, taking another large gulp. Dick didn't doubt that the gulps were only to try and calm him down, though. Wally really couldn't be stupid enough to believe in any of the excuses that he was spouting. "Nah, news said that Renny-Benny was somewhere in Gotham. Scary lil' city, that thing. Crazy clowns running around, weird plant ladies, politicians with faces half burned off, the likes. It's fitting."

Dick would have choked if he had anything in his mouth. The hell was _Renny-Benny _supposed to mean? Not even five minutes. Not _even _five minutes and Dick had received a pet name.

"I mean, sure, he's got all his super high-tech and stuff that can hack into the CSI. It's probably illegal in some countries. It's probably not even released yet. Wow, Renegade must have some _super _wicked tech, actually. Imagine _Deathstroke. _Hahahaha, bet it's enough tech to get from Gotham to Central in under an hour. Half an hour. Undetected, too. Ninjas are pretty popular for that trait. You know, Renegade could probably be in Central right now and nobody would know. Oh my god, Renegade could be in - you're probably - I don't - you - yup, I'm rambling to a famous assassin right now. What a story to tell after Christmas break. 'Hey, Wall-man, what'd you get for Christmas?' 'Oh, hello fellow classmate! I only got a really freaking scary assassin sitting in my living room watching me sleep. Just what I wanted, y'know? Right there on my bucket list.'"

Then, before Renegade could open his mouth: "OhmygooodI'mgoingtodiearen'tI? I _swear to Virgin Mary _that Macy's ripped me off, I _didn't _steal! I'm just that nerd that sits in class and gets swirlies during lunch! Promise! Pleasedon'tkillmeI'msoyoungsoyoungsoyoungIdidn'tevengettogo_bungiejumping-"_

"Why aren't you running?" Dick asked, successfully interrupting Wally's year long babble. Not expecting to be cut off short, Wally momentarily faltered, attempting to grip back onto his train of thought.

"WellIbeteveryoneelseyou'vekilledrantoobutyougotthemanyway," Wally rambled. It took Dick a second to decipher the language, but he eventually got it.

"That's true," he agreed, but said nothing more.

Wally stared. "I-uh," he stammered awkwardly. "I'm not dead."

"I see that," Dick smirked.

"Why am I not dead?"

"Do you want to be dead?"

"No!" Wally exclaimed in horror, throwing up his hands and successfully drenching his shoulder with the open bottle. He didn't seem to care about his wet clothes, though, and only stared at Dick. "I-I just, why…? Don't you… k-kill _everyone_?"

That hit Dick harder than he had anticipated. Hard enough that it felt the breath had decided to up and flee from his lungs and the blood pounded in his skull.

"I have no reason to kill _you," _Dick scowled. "But now you're just asking for it."

At least it shut the kid up.

They sat in silence and Dick could practically _hear _Wally about to burst with questions, but he couldn't care less about relieving the kid's curiousity. He only stared at the way the lights blinked off a shiny ornament framed in cheap gold sparkles. He could only take in the sight of the Christmas tree as it was, holding his breath ever so often only to breathe the scent of the tree in again so that he wouldn't get too used to it. The room was warm, and it became even warmer when, for some reason or another, Wally got up and flicked on the switch for the gas fireplace. The golden glow flushed against Dick's face, contrasting against the darkness still hiding the rest of his frame. His legs were bundled unintentionally by the fluffy red blanket from earlier.

Dick should have been more concerned about Wally's presence. The boy was a threat. Everyone was a threat. But wow, Dick couldn't just bring himself to_care. _Besides, by the absent sound of steps, Wally was still swaying uncertainly beside the fireplace switch. It must have been a good half hour before the silence was broken.

"Uh, you...like it…?" Wally croaked nervously, and Dick's eyes flickered to look at him behind the domino mask. He offered no response. Wally took in a shaky breath and, with more pseudo confidence blossoming in his voice, continued. "I can't really decide if Halloween or Christmas is my favourite holiday. I mean, Christmas is all about family and love and joy, and Halloween is where no one knows who you are and you can eat whatever you want. Hahaha," he chuckled nervously.

"Hiding behind a mask isn't as fun as you think it is," Dick spoke lowly, his mask fixated on the fire.

What was he doing? Why was the atmosphere, the decorations, the silly lights putting him in such a weird mood? He needed to get out. He had already done his night's job, assigned just that morning. Deathstroke, no doubt, had done his long ago as well. Why was he staying, only to speak so personally to a strange boy?

Wally said nothing for a moment. "So, I take it that you prefer Christmas?"

"I don't celebrate Christmas," Dick deadpanned.

"Ahh, Jewish, then? Muslim? Er, Pagan?"

Dick didn't answer. He didn't celebrate holidays because Slade didn't celebrate holidays. He didn't really know what he was, anyway. Probably Atheist. If there was a God, why would Dick be killing all of his creations? What purpose did that serve? Wasn't there a 'you can't kill your friendly neighbourhood humans' passage somewhere in the Bible?

"Classified information? Right," Wally coughed.

There was silence again for a while. If he hadn't been wearing a mask, Dick imagined that his eyes would have dried out long ago from the rising heat of the fire.

"Why do you kill?" Dick was alarmed to discover that Wally was on the other end of the couch. He hadn't taken note of the redhead's movement from the fireplace to the couch. He took in a sharp breath and stood straighter. Maybe it was exhaustion. He was getting off his game. In fact, he was so concerned about having been caught off guard that he failed to register the question until a good minute had passed.

And Dick didn't know.

"Is that...classified, too? Or do you just not want to answer?" Wally continued. Dick already expected him to begin babbling to fill the silence before Wally opened his mouth again. "I-I mean I see on the news all the time - yo-you don't really hide it, you know? Ahhahaha… Politician this, politician that, sad-guy-who-hit-on-the-boss's-daughter here, mafia target there. People are saying you work with some guy with the same symbol. Famous assassin? I forgot his name, though. Really only pay attention to you. Since, you know, you're the one close by. Uhhh…._really _close by. Just...why?"

The air drooped heavily in sadness. Dick's spine prickled at such an openly displayed feeling. Wally's shoulders slumped. "Why?" the redhead whispered. "They don't _deserve _to die. No one does. Not even_you_. Why won't you just...stop killing? Stop killing everyone." When Dick finally decided to physically acknowledge Wally, turning his head to look him mask-to-eye, the kid bit his lip. "Please?"

"You're bold," Dick responded. "Bold and too comfortable asking me for things."

"You haven't hurt me yet," Wally croaked. "Do you only kill people that you get ordered to kill? A mercenary? Who are you ordered by - that mystery partner of yours?"

Dick didn't respond, but it wasn't because he didn't want to. Wally understood when the silence was so silent that the crackling of the communicator in his ear, with its volume once again too high (Dick had the feeling that Slade did that on purpose, probably to make sure to snap his apprentice out of whatever trance he was usually in), drifted into the air.

"Renegade, report," the husky voice demanded. "Where are you?"

Dick slowly, painstakingly slowly, reached a finger up to press into the small microphone. "In the immediate area. Returning shortly."

"ETA: five minutes. Later and a search will be sent."

"Understood."

Wally stared at Dick, and when Dick stared blankly back, it seemed that realisation dawned on Wally's face. He began to shake, his wrist causing the coffee table to vibrate ever so slightly. "_Now _you're going to kill me," Wally whispered. "Because I heard something I shouldn't have. You have people that you work-"

"What did you hear?" Dick interrupted, and he couldn't believe himself. "I still have no reason to kill you- unless you heard something."

Wally continued to stare for another good minute. "Uh- nothing. I didn't hear… anything?"

Dick nodded. Then, he stood, watching as Wally pathetically flopped himself onto the back cushions of the couch to get as far away from Dick as possible. No, Renegade. Wally was trying to get away from Renegade, not Dick. Because Renegade was the murderer, not Dick. Dick was the weak one.

He was Renegade.

Without another word, he slid the window open and slipped out. When Wally ran to watch him off, the redhead found that there was no one outside.


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm proud to announce that this is my best (and longest) chapter. Thank you all so much for the reviews last chapter! It was definitely gratifying to hear what parts about it that you liked.**

**I'm also proud to announce that I was proofreading this with my girlfriend and I happened to get her, without intending, to ship Birdflash. Without ever having watched Young Justice. And through a fanfiction (this fanfiction) that isn't even slash (this can be taken either way, as is with 99% of my writing).**

**But, without further ado, enjoy chapter 2!**

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Perched on a rooftop in Starling City, Dick felt like there was nothing that could bring him down but the small corner of his heart that sagged in soaked depression. An itching feeling, that depression was. He could breath in however deeply that he liked, he could hum with the thrill of adrenaline, but every time that he did he felt that if he just _let go _(even though he didn't know if he was holding onto something to begin with) then he might become overwhelmed with the one percent of his soul that throbbed.

The wind whipped through Dick's hair, blowing it back as he felt a second of euphoria when he moved and finally sprang onto a lower roof. He kept running, his legs stretching out and barely touching the ground itself, pushing and pushing and forever propelling him forward. Dick's heart thrummed. The chip was grasped firmly in the palm of his hand.

A spotlight highlighted Dick's running frame from above and he wanted to scowl at the burst of light. But he couldn't. He was too excited, too _alive, _and far too dead.

Police cars lined the streets below, and Dick would almost wonder what the big deal for a little chip was if he didn't know better. Of course the chip was a big deal if it had been held under such security and yearned for by Slade himself. And, if Dick bothered to remember, he'd remark that he had snapped one security guard's neck who had been a second away from pulling the alarm. But Dick wasn't supposed to think about any of that. He was Slade's apprentice - not his partner. Who was he to know about his mentor's dealings?

A shot bounced off of the pavement behind his leg, and Dick was mildly surprised to note that the helicopters had begun shooting at him. How odd. They must have dropped their lenient no-kill policy somewhere after Dick's nth victim and nth steal.

He felt something hit his thigh. Good thing that part of Renegade's uniform was plated.

"Where are you?" a voice rasped in his ear. Dick wanted to groan in exasperation.

"Turn on the news," Dick grumbled back, beginning to feel breathless.

"You have ten minutes to return." The communicator crackled off. Dick cursed.

And jumped off the edge of the building.

Dick already had his grappling hook out and the line was swung around an arched light pole. He swung over the police cars, shots ringing around him and some impacting the metal plates of his uniform. Thankfully, the overall weight of himself and his uniform prevented the bullets from swinging him off balance and thus, off course. Dick successfully crashed into the window of an office building across the street from the building he had been on top of and the spotlight stopped at the street as he rolled underneath a wooden desk to absorb his landing.

Dick didn't let himself stop to catch his breath. Blood pumping, he sprang out from underneath the desk, thankful that the lights in the room were off to provide him a comfort cover, and dashed through the door.

In the light of everything that had happened that night, Dick found it amusing that he had opened the door like any normal civilian. It certainly felt out of place.

Refusing to pause, Dick shot every security camera that he could spot (which was all of them - his training didn't allow for anything less), and began putting on more clothes.

The building was empty, and if it wasn't then he'd be gone before anyone could peer into the hallway after him. He had added an extra pouch in the back of his black utility belt, something that Slade had yet to know about and he would take off before he saw the man again. Unbuckling the pouch, Dick pulled out a loose shirt and jacket and slipped on the loose articles of clothing as he continued to run. Then he took out a long pair of sweatpants and stopped for the smallest of a second, shoving it up his legs. Dick began to run again as he simultaneously ripped off his mask and belt. He shoved his mask into the belt, folded the belt, and buckled it again over his shirt and under his jacket high on his waist.

Dick found a door to the stairs. Halting, panting, and deliberately beginning to slow his heartbeat, he casually opened the door and began trotting down the stair well as if he had all the time in the world, zipping up his jacket as he did so to hide his belt. Within minutes, Dick arrived at a door at the bottom of the stairwell. He ignored it, turned, and continued walking down the hall until he got to a metal door with a push bar across the middle. Trusting his logic, he pushed it open.

Lo and behold, it was a parking lot. Shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweats and slouching his back and shoulders, he walked, blinking as his eyes accustomed to being unmasked. Spotlights flickered above him, but not on him, instead trained on the roof of the building where they likely expected Renegade to emerge.

He smirked and took out the sunglasses that he kept in his sweats. Dick slipped them on and began scanning the parking lot. Right at the entrance of the parking lot, eyes fixated on the commotion above and in front of the building, was a boy on a bicycle. He was just sitting there, loitering slightly off to the side of the completely deserted sidewalk.

Perfect. A bit stupid for the boy, but perfect for Dick. Chip still in one hand, he absently thumbed its rough surface in his pocket as he began casually walking up to the boy. Dick's hand curled into a fist, ready to drag the other into the bushes, knock him out, and take his bicycle.

"Hey," Dick called as he approached the teenager. The teenager didn't seem to hear him until Dick stood right beside him.

"What? Oh, sorry, hi," the teenager answered. He turned to face Dick.

And Dick's breath caught.

"Wally?" Dick said before he could stop himself, and mentally swore at his own clumsiness. Not that it was much of a deal. He already knew that the teenager wouldn't be calling him out for his presence, if the other day had been any indication.

Wally looked alarmed that a person he had never met before knew his name. He frowned, gripping the handlebars of his bicycle cautiously as he scrutinised Dick. "Who are you?" he demanded. "And why are you wearing sunglasses?" Wally propped his foot on the pedal, body tense and ready to spring into action.

Right. Normal people didn't wear tinted sunglasses late at night. It was habitual, though. Dick couldn't remember the last time he hadn't worn a mask in front of someone. He felt vulnerable just having it off for the few seconds that it took to wash the grit out of his eyes in the morning. Instead of answering, Dick darted his hand out for the handlebar. He gripped the rubber and stared Wally in the eye, though for what, he didn't know. It was his chance to drag the kid off the bike and knock him out. What was he waiting for?

Why was he waiting for Wally to recognise him?

Maybe the silence was the final indication. Having experienced what Wally considered as conversation, Dick figured that he must not know very many silent people. Wally's eyes widened and he sat up straighter. "Re-Ren-" his eyes darted towards the building, where a SWAT team had unloaded onto the roof.

"Give me the bike," Dick demanded.

Wally got off so quickly that he tripped and fell into the water puddle at the edge of the street.

"W-wait!" Wally called as Dick swung one leg onto the seat. "What are you doing in Starling? I-I'm here visiting a friend, and-"

What the hell was wrong with the kid? Pure bewilderment was the only thing that kept Dick rooted in his place.

"Why do you need the chip?" Wally asked instead. He noticed Dick turn his attention back to the sidewalk in front of him and lunged to grab Dick's leg. "No! Wait! I mean, uh… what are you doing this for?"

Dick promptly kicked him in the face. Yelping, Wally fell back and clutched his nose. "Keep away, kid," Dick scowled. "Chasing after me is going to get you killed. I'm not your friend."

"No! You're not!" Wally yelled in frustration. He planted his palms on the street for emphasis, uncovering his nose that was streaming blood into his mouth and coating his front teeth. "You're a murderer, a thief!"

"Then why-" Dick started to ask, frustrated enough himself.

"Because you're not crazy!" Wally screamed. "You're doing this for some reason, but not on your own free will!"

Of course it was on his own will. Slade said so. If it wasn't on his own will, then Dick would simply refuse to do any of the missions. It didn't matter if he was threatened or hurt, he did it, so it was on his own free will.

Sick of listening, Dick kicked off the pavement and headed away from commotion before the police discovered that he wasn't in the building anymore. Once he was well enough away from the area, he would toss his clothes off somewhere in the dirt and call his motorcycle.

"God dammit! Stop listening to Deathstroke! Or Luthor, or whoever it is!" Wally cried out from behind him. Dick didn't even want to know why Wally had gone and searched up Renegade's possible associates. He just wanted to leave, so he did, abandoning the bleeding and near crying boy in the middle of the street.

But Wally would not leave his mind.

So one day, when Slade had no mission assigned for him yet, the day before Christmas Eve, when all of the holiday's assignments would be thrown at the mercenary and his apprentice left and right, Dick found himself in Central City.

It was still light out - in fact, it was a good few hours before evening even started to fall. It was unusual for Renegade to be out at that time, in such a cheerful city as Central no less, but Renegade worked at night. The only 'free time' he had was during the day. So the day it was.

There was no one in Wally's house, and the clock was discovered to tell the time as fifteen minutes to three. It was likely that his parents were still at work and he himself was still at school. How annoying. Instead of turning back, though, Dick only opened every door in his house and began scanning the bedrooms.

Wally's mother was flamboyant. She had nothing on her walls, but they were painted a light maroon. Her bedsheets had sewn swirling patterns of silver on them over the red background, and the duvet was white and practically bursting with feathers. A peek into her closet revealed sequin covered wine red and grape purple dresses, her mirror desk was stained with make up, and she had boxes of heavy and sparkling jewelry. Black eyeliner and various shades of purple eyeshadow were still open.

His father was angry. Dick assumed that when he discovered that the bedroom, which had clothes that could only belong to a man, was small and separate from the mother's. There were suits in his closet, but those were crammed to the very back and looked very much untouched. All the clothes that should have been on the hangars were on the ground of the closet, likely knocked over, and there was no mirror. One drawer had been flung out and lie broken in the corner and his blue bedsheets were on the floor. There were stains of curious liquid on the carpet.

Wally himself was...moralful. Happy.

There were comic books scattered about on his pillow, which sported a bright and cheerful yellow colour. Dirty clothes were scattered on the ground and crammed under the bed, and multiple belts lay abandoned at the foot of his bed. There were posters of significant political figures on the wall and a bobble head of Martin Luther King Jr. at his bedside. Sticky notes scattered the surface of his drawers, reminding him to turn in something in Chemistry or invite some girl to the dance or drop cookies by on his way to his aunt's house. A quick glance to the corner of the room revealed a mostly empty bookcase stacked with action movies, graphic novels, thesauruses, and a few journals. One of the journals which, Dick discovered, was filled with scribbles of thoughts, feelings, and comical cartoons.

He seriously had nothing to hide. Not by what Dick could see from his room. If the journal was under his bed, that would be different. It might show shame or secrecy. Maybe if his sheets were blue or the posters on his wall had pictures of girls and cars instead of presidents and a few funny prints of the English Prime Minister, then Dick could conclude that Wally was somewhat shallow and lonely. But no. Wally really hid _nothing. _Nothing past what a normal person would hide, at least - and maybe a bit less. His room was sincere. Genuine.

The front door opened. There was the creak of carpeted floorboards as Dick peered down the stairs to see a teenaged redhead sporting a heavy backpack walking away from him, towards the couch in the living room. Dick stepped out of Wally's room, onto the staircase, and watched as Wally swung the backpack onto the couch arm. The redhead slumped in relief at the lifted weight and picked up the remote.

Dick slid soundlessly down the stair railing and walked to the back of the couch. Wally paused, hand half raised with the remote, a suspicious sense likely catching the watchful presence of another person. Dick smirked victoriously as Wally slowly turned to face him.

Wally's face turned red, likely due to increased heartbeat and random shots of adrenaline, and backed up until his knees hit the table.

"If you're so afraid of me," Dick asked, "then why do you bother looking at me as someone other than a cold-hearted monster?" Wally's breath came in short rasps and Dick didn't bother pressing him for an answer as the boy worked to calm himself down from the silent scare that the assassin had given him. That didn't go to say that there wasn't sweat collecting on his brow and over his shaking palms, though.

"Never said you weren't a cold-hearted monster," Wally croaked. "Just not crazy. Or free."

Free. Dick thought that he was pretty free. More free than most people out there, being able to swing past buildings, cutting through the chill air and never getting caught. Running and dancing and jumping however he pleased. Yeah, Dick figured that he was pretty free. "I do the job assigned and get rewarded for it. That's how an assassin's life is," Dick stated matter-of-factly.

Wally looked like he had already anticipated that answer, though. Dick figured that he must have. After all, meeting an assassin was not an everyday thing, and it was likely that Renegade had been the only thing on Wally's mind for days. Dick was almost honoured. "What's your reward?" Wally demanded. "Money? Fame?"

"Whatever I want," Dick said, eyes behind his mask narrowed.

"Whatever _you _want, or whatever _Deathstroke _wants?" Wally spat.

Dick tensed. "What makes you say that I work for Deathstroke?" he said cautiously, quietly, but not at all warmly.

"Come on, it's not _that _hard to connect the pieces," Wally exclaimed, exasperated. Dick decided that Wally was too worked up to register who, exactly, he was talking to again. "My uncle works for the police, my dad's been caught by the police, I can walk into the station whenever I want and Deathstroke always somehow gets the things that you steal. Deathstroke's enemies are always after you, too. You work for Deathstroke."

"I don't work for him."

"_Yeah, _you _do. _And what reward do you get out of it? What does he give you?" The taller teenager's face was beginning to darken in frustration - again.

Nothing. "I get left alone," Dick growled, and he cursed himself in and out, down and back from Hell. What was he doing, playing the kid's game?

"So you're his prisoner?" accused Wally.

"I'm his _apprentice," _spat Dick.

There. Something that Wally wasn't expecting. The teenager blinked in surprise, straightening ever so slightly. His panting breaths rang out in the suddenly silent air. "Apprentice? Like, you...let him mentor you?"

"He teaches me," Dick explained. "Just as any mentor does to an apprentice. I learn his trade."

"You…want to? Want to learn his trade?"

"I learn his trade," repeated the apprentice.

They stood parallel to each other, Dick leaning against the back of the couch and Wally standing rimrod straight in front of the coffee table. Slowly, Wally crossed his arms over his chest. "Is he your dad?"

"_What?" _Dick exclaimed in horror, standing up in shock.

"There's no way you want to do what you do. If you liked it, I'd be dead," Wally said. Dick clenched his fists.

"You're so convinced, aren't you? Do you _want _me to kill you?"

"Do you want to kill me?" Wally countered.

"No," Dick shouted, and just like that, it felt as if all the anger had left him. Left him a limp mannequin. He closed his eyes, though that wasn't visible from the mask restricting strangers from seeing his eyes.

"What are you, twelve?" said Wally, but he whispered, as if the silence was more precious than the silence before. He didn't sound condescending. No, he was well aware of what Dick could do. He couldn't possibly be judging Dick by his age. But he did sound like something else. He sounded pitying.

Dick didn't need pity. Wally was the one who needed pity for his weak, mundane life.

"My personal information is none of your business," Dick snapped back. What did it matter if he was younger or shorter than Wally was? Since when did that determine his skill?

Wally daringly stepped forward, but before he could do anything else, he found himself on the ground. His head was throbbing and there was a foot over his throat, choking him, with a white eskrima stick right in front of his eye. He gulped.

"I do what I have to. I kill because I get told to. I steal because I get assigned to. If I do, I get rewarded"-if he didn't, he got punished-"and in the end, it's both beneficial to me and to the man who hires my services."

"'Man who hires your services'?" echoed the redhead, gasping for air as Dick's foot pressed slightly harder. "So what, you," he paused to struggle for more breath, "just get rid of the guys that people don't like? Instead of throwing them in jail? Wash the streets with blood?" Wally's voice was barely coming out by that point as he realised that talking quieter put less resistance against the foot over his neck. Dick waited a few seconds before releasing him. Wally bent over and gasped.

"It's easier for everyone," Dick stated. That was the end of it. He didn't intend to hear any more. Why did he visit Wally, anyway? All the boy did was lecture him. Try and drag him out of the 'dark side'. Well, for his information, Dick was on no one's side at all. Dick was on Dick's side and there wasn't anyone who could tell him what to do.

Except Slade.

And that one thought prevented him from moving anywhere at all.

"Well," Wally muttered harshly, looking up into Renegade's mask. "Well, maybe you think killing makes things easier. But it doesn't. It just makes people dead."

"Dead people can't complain," Dick growled. He flashed his eskrima sticks, sticking them back into his belt, and left.

Maybe dead people couldn't complain, but living people could. That was what Dick figured out as he stood in the middle of one of Slade's haunts, an abandoned chemical compound factory off the outskirts of Central's city limits. Shadows hugged the corners, slithered around the edges of his vision, and Dick was seemingly alone. But years of living with Slade taught him better. It was only Slade's, albeit slightly overused and a bit cliche, trademark.

"I have the chip," Dick spoke confidently into the large, quiet, empty space. There was no response at first, then:

"Good."

The area lit up suddenly, sharp lights casting themselves on the ground at the far back of the factory and drawing long shadows from the abandoned machinery. Slade stood there, spine straight and posture poised, one arm resting on his lower back and the other curled in front for the chip. Dick obediently walked, his shoes making just the most silent clicks against the smooth floor, until he stood parallel to Slade. He unceremoniously plopped the chip into the man's outstretched palm.

Slade held it up to the light to examine it, though Dick supposed that was more for show than anything else. He turned it over and over again and must have found something satisfactory, for he carefully slipped it into a hidden pouch of his uniform.

Then there was a foot in Dick's face, and Dick was on the ground.

He gasped, struggling to regain the air knocked out of him for the slightest of a millisecond before grabbing the foot as balance, bracing his own foot against the floor, and kicked up with his other. His toe collided with Slade's lower back and the man tilted just the most minuscule amount forward, enabling Dick to grab his arm and pull him down.

Slade didn't go down. Instead, he used the momentum in his favour and regained his footing just above Dick's head. He kicked hard into his apprentice's shoulder as the boy tried to get up, sending Dick back to the ground on his knees.

"Don't expect to beat me just yet," Slade drawled monotonously. "You haven't learned enough. But your reaction time has improved since the last time."

Dick scowled at the ground, clutching his shoulder. The toe of Slade's boot had collided with the bridge between Dick's neck and shoulder and he felt the area bruising almost instantaneously. He cleared his throat, attempting to get rid of the shut feeling that the hit had given it.

"Up."

Dick stumbled to his feet. A foot crashed into his chest, and Dick felt the back of his head hit a wall. He frowned.

When Slade fought with him, the movements were still so simple. He only beat Dick by brute force when it got down to fighting strategy. If any other man on the street were using the moves that Slade was using at that moment to compete with his apprentice, they would have been down in seconds.

So, why was it that every time Dick stood in front of Slade, he felt like nothing but the small boy who had been plucked from the circus life and into the never ending cycle of being a mercenary?

Dick hadn't been that boy in five years.

It was Christmas night when Dick was outside again, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the haunt and the sweaty confines of the training room. It was every stereotypical Hollywood movie that Dick could think of: trees along the street were outlined in golden lights, store fronts were glowing, Santa suits were ringing bells, cars were honking, and lots of classic light pollution. There was no snow yet that year, and instead Dick's hair clung to his cheeks as the rain soaked it through. He was, as always, on a roof.

It wasn't a particularly high roof. For once, the tallest vantage point wouldn't be in his favour. Across the street from him was a bright five star hotel, below him being the front doors where the valet was being instructed, and directly at eye level was a row of windows that Dick had had his eyes trained on for hours. However, the very last window in that row, the one farthest to the right, was where Dick's true attention was kept.

He blinked, carefully aligning his eye to the lense between him and the window.

The man was off to the side of the window, just barely out of reach for a perfect bulls-eye. His shoulder was blocked by the curtain, and he kept rocking forward to pick up various objects from his bedside desk so that he could set them on the low table between his bed and the door. The table was also in front of the window, but there was a woman sitting on the couch behind it, and the way that the man kept shifting nervously back and forth prevented Dick from taking any risks.

Arnold Joy, businessman of the rising tech company JoyForTech. In fact, the company had been rising so fast that Dick had received an anonymous tip (though, not so anonymous for Slade) that it wasn't very much liked. It was a shame that Joy had gotten himself into the wrong business with the wrong men, but there wasn't very well anything that Dick could do about it. He was there to do his job and get out.

The man was young, though. A clean shaven, lanky ginger. Young and fresh and nervous and excitable. Happy. He more than lived up to his name. The files in his hands that he kept darting in front of the woman's nose were accompanied with a large smile and bright eyes. His suit was wrinkled and his tie had long since been loosened. The young Asian woman to his shoulder seemed to find the entire ordeal only amusing, though, as she pointed to something on the page with her nail and made a sarcastic remark, which Dick could tell from the raise of her eyebrows and the cock of her chin.

Dick adjusted the angle of his lense ever so slightly.

There.

Arnold made the mistake that Dick had been waiting for ever since he had walked into that room with the woman on his arm. The man had walked to the window, and Dick might have taken the shot right at that moment if he hadn't realised that Arnold was making Dick's job even _easier _by leaning forward. If Dick's bullet didn't kill him instantly, a fall to the street below surely would.

Dick applied pressure to the trigger. Arnold leaned out further as the woman stood from the couch. He was pointing to something below, across the street.

More pressure.

Then, Dick's eyes widened and his breath stuttered. So close, he was so close to pressing the trigger all the way and all of the sudden, Dick could have sworn that the man looked exactly like Wally.

That wasn't possible, though, a fact proven when Dick blinked rapidly to clear his sight. It wasn't Wally.

But it might as well have been.

They were both people, weren't they? Citizens. Only innocent civilians.

Dick thought later that had he been given just a second longer, he would have shot Arnold anyway. Deep down, though, he knew that there would never be an answer to what he would have done. Equal parts of him quarreled - to shoot or not to shoot. He didn't know.

But he didn't have to, because that was the moment that the woman remained simply a foot away from joining the businessman's side. Her eyes lifted and she saw Dick.

Her mouth opened, and she screamed.

Startled, Arnold flung himself backwards and crashed into the desk. Dick's target was lost. The woman pointed, Joy's face turned pasty white, and there was a mad scramble from the both of them to get out of there as fast as possible. Honestly, Dick still could have been able to kill his target. He could have at least severely injured him and grappled across the street to finish the job before any help could be called.

But Dick was frozen. He could only watch the scene as if he were simply in a movie theatre, only in a movie theatre. He wasn't involved. He played no part in it. He was sitting and eating popcorn somewhere in the back, behind the mother with the pre-teen that whined too much. Dick could no longer even feel the cold chill caused by the wind whipping against his wet hair.

He half expected the crackly voice of Slade, as it always was, to mutter into his ear. But it didn't, and Dick remembered that Slade was off on his own assignment. It was Christmas. Busy, busy Christmas. Slade wouldn't know that Arnold Joy had escaped from Dick until later, possibly morning.

He wouldn't know that Dick had let him.

Dick should have followed Joy. Finished him off.

He didn't.

Instead, he shakily set the shotgun on the surface of the roof. His nimble fingers quickly packed up the equipment and he dragged his grappling hook out from his belt, shooting it off into the distance and swinging away before he could be found.

It was a few streets of swinging, a few instances of slipping through open windows, a couple of alleyway stairs climbed down before the bag with the shotgun clattered to the ground and Dick fell with it.

The acrobat put his face in his hands and cried like he hadn't in five years.

He returned to Wally's house as morning was peering over the horizon, silhouetting the quiet houses of Sunset Rd. with golden edges. It wasn't hard for Dick to remember where Wally's room was judging from the outside, and he cracked open the window of the teenager's bedroom in order to sneak in.

As expected, Wally was asleep. But he wasn't in his bed. If Dick had been in a better mood, he might have found the teenager sprawled on the carpet with a bag of chips and a game console in his hands to be amusing. Instead, it made his mood plummet even deeper, seeing the scene of what could have been and never was.

What if Dick had been accepted into a foster home? Some people always preached about how terrible that system was, but Dick figured... Dick figured it was better than being in the system that he was in.

He silently sat down at the foot of the bed, looking at the television screen flashing GAME OVER across the surface. Dick glanced at the consol, but couldn't for the life of him guess what button went with what control and scanned briefly for the remote instead. He shut the television off and leaned back against the bed's wooden panel.

It was peaceful and quiet. Wally's breaths rang hard and true throughout the space, so loud probably because they were forced through the fabric of the pillow that his face had smashed into. It wasn't long before golden light fell into his lap from the window, warming Dick ironically despite the winter cold of outside and the remorseful cold of inside.

Dick knew that he should have attempted to shut the blinds before the light travelled and woke up Wally. He couldn't bring himself to move, though. Really, he couldn't bring himself to do much of anything. Wally's breaths were steady and lulling and they paced Dick's own breaths, paced them until Dick himself was steady and being lulled.

He was waking up before he knew it.

His shoulder had been shaken by a hand, but when Dick's eyes snapped open, far too used to being on constant alert to risk grogginess, the only other person in the room had already run to the other end as if Dick were a bomb ready to detonate.

He kind of was, really. Nonetheless, Dick snapped to his feet within seconds and spread his legs apart into a fighting stance, hands already curled around the heads of the eskrima sticks stuck through his belt.

Wally stared back at him shakily, holding a deadly plate of eggs and bacon.

It took a bit longer for Dick to recognise that the most dangerous thing in front of him was the possibility of burnt toast. It took even longer for him to even attempt to relax his posture, settling for hanging his arms by his side and standing up straight. Wally's eyes were wide.

"Uh-uuuh-uhm," he stammered. "I-I didn't- you- I found you earlier- I was eating breakfast- here." Before Dick could begin to decipher what the teenager was trying to say, Wally had thrust the tray of food into the empty air between them. His arms were stiff and he shuffled his legs anxiously as he waited for Dick's reaction.

There was a tense, awkward silence before Dick slowly moved to take the tray with the plate, a fork, and orange juice from Wally. He stared down at it.

"I told my aunt that I just wanted more and she gave me all this- ahaha she- I mean _I _eat a lot, but I figured you'd want something- yeah, she _totally _doesn't know you're here, bytheway-" Dick only nodded, causing Wally to trail off clumsily and clear his throat. The redhead's eyes darted around the room for something to focus on. "So, uhhh, what'cha doin' here?"

What _was _Dick doing there?

It didn't take long for him to remember, and he found that he had suddenly lost his appetite. He carefully set the tray down on Wally's bed and Wally seemed to get the gist as Dick sat against the wall under the window.

"You- you can sit on the bed," Wally stammered nervously. He wiped his palms on his thighs and, still searching for something to fill the silence, grabbed the remote to the television that Dick had turned off earlier. Dick didn't move.

Dick didn't really know how it felt, to have someone considered deadly and dangerous casually in the same room as him. Mostly because Dick was the one considered deadly and dangerous, but he did know that normal civilians would be taking it far worse than Wally was. Honestly, Dick had to respect how well that Wally was dealing with the presence of Renegade, infamous assassin, sitting in his bedroom. Maybe the teenager really was convinced that Dick wasn't all that bad.

That didn't excuse the fact that Dick was a murderer, though. Once upon a time, Renegade and Dick had been two different people. Two different IDs. Two different _entities. _

But the hands that the blood soaked were one and the same.

The screen clicked on, and the room was promptly blasted with blaring sound. Wally quickly began turning it down, but no amount of turning down the reporter's voices would block their words from Dick's mind.

"-ntral City! I hope no one else spent the beginning of the holidays as horribly as Arnold Joy, founder of JoyForTech, did last night."

"Agreed, Jack. As Mr. Joy tells us, he was only spending some time with Miranda White, co-founder of JoyForTech, in their hotel room on Christmas night. When they went up to the window, though, Miss. White screamed, saying that she saw _Renegade, _international _assassin, _with a shotgun pointed straight at them from the opposite rooftop. He wasn't even _trying _to hide! Looks like his confidence has really grown, hasn't it?"

"I'll agree - confidence grown. But not wrongly. He hasn't missed a shot before, right?"

"Right. _Until now. _Because, miraculously, Mr. Joy is still with us. Looks like Christmas really does hold some magic, after all. The two quickly ran out of the room and found the police, but they didn't sustain a single scratch."

"I think they're the first to have a run-in with Renegade and live."

"I-"

"Oh," Wally gulped. "That's why."

Dick glowered at the television, itching to yank the remote from Wally's fingers and turn it off. He didn't need a reminder of his failures. Most of all, though, he didn't need the extra pressure of being so aware that Slade _obviously knew exactly what had happened _by then. The most stressful part about it was that Slade wasn't standing in Wally's bedroom with him.

Wally turned to him. Dick thought that the teenager was going to give a lecture, a declaration that Wally finally realised that he was standing in the same room as Renegade himself and wanted nothing more to do with the assassin. But he got none of that. Wally only gripped the remote tighter as the corners of his mouth hesitantly curled up.

Dick stared incredulously.

"You chose to let him live, didn't you?" Wally whispered with just barely contained excitement. Dick couldn't _fathom _how a teenager as crazy as Wally existed. When Dick gave no answer, Wally absolutely beamed and opened his mouth, looking as if he wanted to give some sort of praise, but there didn't seem to be anything that Wally could say to describe himself.

Dick knew a word to describe himself, though. _Dead _seemed appropriate.

How many lashes? Dick's back burned in pain along his earlier scars as if fighting to remind him of how he had earned them. How many kicks? Punches? Fights? Drills? How many more people would Dick have to kill in order to compensate, to prove himself again?

But what, exactly, did Dick have to prove? Dick proved what he had wanted to prove by not killing Joy - whatever it was. The one thing that stood out to Dick, though, was the missing part of his soul.

The replacement of the sadness that normally leaked into his soul was the most noticeable fact that entire morning. Instead of it, there was another feeling there, one that Dick couldn't place, as he looked to the screen and found Arnold Joy's mugshot planted there.

It wasn't happiness. Dick was too fearful for that, too dreading for what was to come. He almost thought that it was accomplishment. But Dick didn't accomplish anything, right? His assignment had been a failure. There was no accomplishment in that.

Wally plopped heavily down onto his bed, rattling the glass of orange juice. He didn't seem the least bit concerned about spilling the food, though, as he practically radiated happiness. He turned his attention to Dick, who was staring at the wall.

"Does this mean you're out from Deathstroke's control?" Wally asked. Dick frowned. Did Wally somehow gain the impression that Dick was being mind controlled?

Or did he mean if Dick's actions were no longer being directed by Slade? Dick decided to go with that.

"No," he deadpanned. He had already given up on restricting information from the strange teenager. What could Wally possibly do to hurt him at that point?

Wally's happiness dropped so fast that Dick was left wondering if it had ever been there to begin with. "Oh," he muttered, before tensing. _"Oh. _Then... Deathstroke doesn't know you're here?"

"He knows."

"Oh." The kid looked drop dead terrified. Wally cleared his throat. "That means he's letting you stay, then, right? You can stay in here - i-if you want, I mean. My aunt never comes up or anything so you're totally fine, heh. Uh... Is there anything you need? Want? Need or want? Need and want?"

Dick had quickly begun to block out Wally's voice. His mind was preoccupied by the possibility of what Slade's mind was preoccupied by. Was the mercenary waiting for Dick to return on his own? Was he waiting for Dick to make a run for it? Did he want to kill Dick or confront him? There was only one outcome that Dick knew, for once, that he wanted.

He wanted to be free.

That's what Wally spoke of, wasn't it? Dick was apparently Slade's prisoner, and Dick might not have believed it if he didn't know, in the corner of his mind, that he remembered smiling before Slade found him.

Wally must have thought that Dick was crazy as the assassin curled the corner of his lips, giving a lopsided smile at the wall. It felt too stiff. Too stretched. He dropped it. How did it feel like to smile, genuinely smile, naturally? Was it a conscious decision, or did happiness make a person smile? He couldn't remember his nine year old self well enough to conclude if he had ever thought about smiling, or if it had just happened.

"Are you...?" Wally trailed off cautiously, frowning at Dick's attempts of expression. Was Wally asking if Dick was okay? That really shouldn't have been a question.

"I'm a mask," Dick muttered. Wally turned the volume of the television down even lower to hear. "Masks are never not okay and they're never okay. They're right in between, just as an object or idea should be."

Wally didn't look like he knew how to react to that. He shuffled a bit on his covers and juggled the remote between his hands. "Well," he started shakily. Given his personality, he probably wasn't used to talking about anything serious out loud. "You're just wearing a mask, aren't you? The person underneath the mask can be ok and can not be okay."

Dick stared at the palms of his hands. "It isn't that easy."

"It kind of is," Wally replied bluntly, before catching himself. "I mean, just take it off and don't be Renegade anymore. Don't be a murderer."

"I'm a murderer, with or without the mask," insisted the assassin.

"Yeah," Wally agreed. "But without the mask, no one else knows it."

"Isn't that just putting on another mask?"

"No, because you'll be you, and your past defines you. You won't be hiding anything the way you hide your face. Just because someone puts something behind them doesn't mean they're hiding from it," the redhead continued, determined, his lips set into a fine line at the television screen.

Dick didn't know if he could adopt Wally's philosophy so easily. He felt as if his very flesh and bones were just melting into the wall and the floor. He was magneted there, chained, roped down, and he didn't think he could move. By doing nothing, though, he was easily able to notice the volume of the television once again rise.

"Oh, uh, we're getting a call- oh my god, switching to Main Street, Central City, with Iris West as our-"

"You won't _believe _what's going on over here! No- no, turn the camera _around, _Mark, don't focus on me! Yeah, just like that. See that? If I didn't know better, I'd say it's _Deathstroke_!"

"Sh-shouldn't we be moving away?" a male voice filtered through from right beside the mic.

"No, zoom in! He's just standing there. What do you think he's there for?"

"Iris, I don't think he likes being broadcasted… He's staring at us…"

"This is Iris West, reporting live from Main Street, Central City, as we look at _Deathstroke _himself, just standing in the middle of Keystone Park. Mark, hold still. He doesn't seem to be doing anything. He isn't even trying to attack us."

"He's _staring," _the nervous cameraman stressed.

"Seems to me like a lot of assassins have been doing that lately here in Central."

The screen switched back to the sitting news reporters, their cross bewildered and worried expressions permeating the area. "Hey, Iris, he's staring into the camera, not you guys," the blonde woman to the left said. "Do you think he's waiting for some_one_?"

When Wally looked around his room, panicked, he found that Renegade had already gone.


	3. Chapter 3

"Renegade," a smooth, dark voice drawled. It sent shivers down Dick's back, sweat trickling down his spine beneath the layers of polyester and wool separating him from the Christmas cold. He didn't answer. "You were supposed to report hours ago."

"You never told me to," Dick responded. He relished in the fact that his voice didn't croak. It didn't sound weak or frightened at all. It took him a moment to realise that was only because he was no longer so uncertain as to what he wanted.

"I was testing you."

The park was surrounded in cars. Police cars, news vans, the cars originally there for the park itself, anything and everything. Yellow tape was being drawn as if the brown grass were already a crime scene and people were being waved back frantically. But Dick and Slade didn't move, looking at one another head on, suspended in time right beside the plastic playground slides.

"I was testing to see if you would come back and confront me about your own failures. You failed. I never took you as a coward, Renegade."

Dick was a coward before that day. It was that moment, when Slade said that Dick was a coward, that Dick knew he was a coward no longer. "I may be a coward, but you're a fool," Dick grit.

Slade stood stock still, his feet poised and his hands balanced on his lower back.

"Did you think you could keep me doing this forever? What's in it for me?" Dick challenged, his confidence growing as he automatically moved into a fighting stance, eyes narrowed at the man in front of him. The man that it had been drilled into him for five straight years not to defy, not to go against, and most certainly not to fight back.

There was a part of Dick that was scared. A part of him that wanted to crumble and beg for forgiveness, because it was so much easier and it was what he had been _taught. _He wasn't supposed to be doing what he was.

But he was doing it anyway.

"Food. A mentor. Training. Shelter. The ability to learn skills that only select individuals out of billions know. Very few people get the opportunities that you have had with me," Slade replied evenly. "If it weren't for me, you would be in a foster home with useless guardians who wouldn't recognise your potential."

"I wouldn't be a murderer," interrupted Dick.

Slade strode forward smoothly. "They had no potential. Not like you do. You're more important than they are. We're doing the world a favour, Renegade."

"No, just me," Dick growled. "By getting myself rid of you."

Slade's body was deathly still as he opened his mouth.

And Dick saw it coming. Years of training with that man allowed him to see it coming.

Without actually saying anything, Slade suddenly struck out with a weapon he must have kept hidden in the fist behind his back. If it had been a sword, Dick would have lost balance by springing back because his recovery time would have been shorter than the time it would have taken for Slade to continue lunging forward. However, Dick was well aware that a weapon small enough to be in Slade's fist was probably a projectile - and most of Slade's projectiles swung in an arc. Therefore, Dick only ducked.

Without missing a beat, Slade whipped out the sword strapped to his waist and stanced himself, sweeping forward to cut down on Dick. Dick crouched and sprung up near Slade's chest, causing the sword's blade to miss its mark, and as Slade brought the sword towards himself to trap Dick to him, Dick flipped into a handstand and kicked Slade's legs out from under him.

His confidence grew as Slade stumbled back.

Dick quickly got to his feet and threw a flat palm to Slade's face, but Slade easily blocked and threw a punch of his own. Too slow to move out of such close range, Dick's shoulder was nicked, throwing him off balance on one side. Slade spun around and attempted sweeping his apprentice's legs out from under him as well, only for Dick to spring into the air. When he landed, Slade was already swinging another hand, but Dick managed to catch it and yank Slade towards him. Slade stumbled for only a step before whipping out an eskrima stick and swinging it in Dick's face. Dick leaped back.

Using his own momentum in his favour, Slade planted the stick into the ground and kicked out with his legs, hitting Dick square in the chest and flattening the boy to the grass.

"If you couldn't beat me in training, how do you expect to beat me in a real fight?" Slade rumbled.

Dick groaned, his face scrunched up in exaggerated pain. Slade remained where he was, eskrima stick clasped firmly in both hands, staring down at his apprentice. Dick slowly got up and Slade only watched as Dick planted one hand into the dirt- and swung an explosive out from under his back.

Slade leaped to the side, barely missing the small pocket device as it exploded beside his ear. The assassin winced as the event caused ringing in his head, and Dick used that opportunity to rear back and lunge his stick into Slade's collarbone, causing the man to choke and stumble. He wasn't to be deterred for long, however, and Dick grabbed his other stick and planted that in the ground as well, using it to support his weight as he kicked off from a tree and ran in a circle through the air. He kicked Slade in the side of the jaw. Slade's head whipped back, but he managed to grab ahold of Dick's ankle as he kept turning, letting go when the boy kicked him in the throat, and caused Dick to fly a foot away. The apprentice bent his arms underneath him as he fell and sprang back up the second he hit the ground.

The two of them stilled, bodies ready to spring, but minds preparing for the other one to make the first move. They faced off. Dick panted and decided that hatred was definitely a tangible feeling. A tangible feeling that only grew and grew the more he chose to ignore it.

"Why are you trying?" Slade continued. "Aren't I like a father to you? Haven't I raised you?"

"You will _never _be _anything _like my parents," Dick growled.

Eventually, Dick was pushed back. The harder he tried to gain ground, the more ground he lost. Soon enough, his feet were padding against wood chips as they entered the playground on the other side of the grass, then there was grass again, and the fight continued on. Multiple times it should have ended with Slade as the victor, but Dick always got up again, and it reached the point that Dick was enraged to hypothesise that Slade was _playing _with him. He was testing him. _Again._

He was even more enraged to discover that, despite Slade not being particularly serious, Dick was still losing.

He was pushed up against a tree. The cars and people and pedestrians and police and news reporters and everyone Dick had possibly seen yet in that city were only yards away, and he felt ashamed to be so closely watched. Everything Dick had ever done in his life had been a performance for someone or something, but at that very moment, Dick could only wish that he were left unnoticed. If it were that, none of anything would have led up to the fight that he was failing.

Failing.

Dick was failing a lot things recently.

Slade thrust forward with his sword. Dick sprang into the air and grasped a tree branch, flipping into the leaves. But as it turned out, Slade must have easily predicted such a move, for the blade hadn't actually been aimed at Dick. It had been aimed at the branch.

Dick tried to jump further into the plant, but he was tired and panting and too short of breath. The branches snagged at his uniform and his hair and his limbs, and he just couldn't kick fast enough or hard enough to get free. He thrashed, it tangled him further, and he was on the ground again before he knew it.

When Dick finally tossed the foliage off of himself, Slade's sword dropped to press lightly against his throat.

The crowd's shouting grew louder, the police's efforts more frantic. Dick frowned. Would Slade really kill him right there? He was completely surrounded by officials toting guns. It would be much harder for Slade to escape than it had been in most past events.

But there were also civilians there, and Slade was Slade. Already, Dick could see, as shadows behind his ex-mentor, reporters who must have slipped through and sneaked around. A good smoke bomb and the police wouldn't dare shoot in risk of hitting anyone innocent.

In other words, Dick was about to die.

And he couldn't bring himself to care.

The pressure of the blade was almost comforting in how it was so constant. He breathed deeply, causing the tip to dig deeper into his flesh. Really? That entire time, throughout all of Dick's life, it had just been as easy as putting a knife to his neck for all of it to be over?

Not quite. That was proven when he heard Slade say something, and Dick almost couldn't believe that Slade was letting a boy he had once been so obsessed with go. Maybe he had grown bored, or maybe he had understood that nothing would keep Dick forever at bay from his own desires. Then, when Dick offered no answer, he wasn't really paying attention to what Slade was saying anyway, the pressure was released. Dick didn't bother opening his eyes. The tension in the air was still there, the half screaming half dead silence of the crowd still fell as a backdrop. Slade was only getting ready. He was taking his time.

He was...shooting?

Dick's eyes snapped open. They snapped open to meet the expressionless grey eyes of his ex-mentor as the man's mouth parted ever so slightly.

And his entire body fell limply onto Dick.

Dick's palms were in front of his chest, supporting the weight of Slade's shoulders and the man's still laboured breaths. The ex-apprentice was staring wide-eyed at the ironic blue skies as he felt the blood leaking onto his stomach. He couldn't even hear the crowd screeching from the pounding of his ears and the gasps of his heart.

All he could feel was Slade's warm, weak breath against the side of his neck and the disgusting, revolting emotions that stirred in his gut and made him want to do anything to throw the man off of him. He wanted to, but he was too shocked. Everything was going too fast.

Dick blinked, and suddenly there was another mask in front of him. He wanted to back away, as far as possible, he didn't want to see another mask ever again, but that particular mask held out a hand as the police rushed forward.

"P-l-ea-s-se," the person pleaded. The sound was so soft, so pitiful, so nervous, and so horrified that Dick was instantly snapped out of his unpleasant reverie.

Without thinking, he tossed the bleeding man off of him, grabbed the boy's hand, reached into his belt, and the both of them disappeared.

* * *

"Just saying, arguments are _exploding _all over Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, you name it, having to do with Central City's new 'infestation' of vigilantes. A city once considered one of the safest and sunniest in Keystone County now has parents locking their children behind closed doors 24/7. It's insane."

"I can agree with you there. Murderers saving murderers about to be killed by murderers."

"And what else? They have to be just kids! I mean, anyone remember that clip? We've never really seen Renegade in the light for so long, let alone by so many cameras. I swear, is he even over 5 ft?"

"Why are we talking about Renegade's height? I'm more concerned with the epic showdown of the century he and _Deathstroke _just had all over _national television."_

"Speaking of which, any news on Deathstroke's condition?"

"No. He was taken in by the hospital, but he didn't look like he was doing too good."

"And we care _why? _That man's a murderer. A cold-hearted, bloody murderer! We've been trying to kill him for years! So what, some kid decided to dress up and kill him themselves. Why should we complain?"

"Well, first of all, now we have _two_ kid assassins on our hands."

"To be fair, I've never seen the new one before. You know, the one that saved Renegade's life? Maybe they're related or something, but I've been looking into it and I can't find a single thing about any assassin dressed like that."

"I don't think he's an assassin. If he was, wouldn't he have his own gun instead of stealing it from a cop car? The cops were so distracted by what was going on in the park that they didn't pay any attention."

"It's hard to believe that they totally ignored some kid dressed in all black and gloves with a balaclava and sunglasses."

"He had a super low hood, though? I'm pretty sure the scene in the park was more interesting anyway."

"Fine, well, assassin before or not, if Deathstroke is dead, he's an assassin now."

"Assassin? Are you kidding me? If Deathstroke's dead, he's a freaking hero!"

The woman driving the car rolled her eyes and turned down the radio, tuning out the crackling and arguing voices of the radio hosts. She peered up into the rearview mirror to cast a raised eyebrow at the passenger in back. "Hey, Walls, you doin' alright back there?"

"Yeah," Wally muttered, his shoulders slouched and temple pressed against the window. He frowned at the woman. "Why?"

"You've been acting weird."

Wally only shrugged, though. He drew in closer to himself, turning to stare back out the window. A few minutes of uncomfortable silence passed, the murmur of radio hosts filling the background, before Wally spoke again. "Aunt Iris, you're a reporter, right? Do you guys know if Deathstroke's...y'know?"

Iris West bit her lip, staring hard at the red light in front of her. "No, not yet. They haven't been letting anyone into the ER. If I'm honest, though, they shouldn't be paying to save him. I heard that he's going to be executed when he's out."

"Isn't that illegal?" Wally questioned.

"I thought so, too. I guess there's limits to your crimes, especially with so much evidence piled against you," Iris replied. She looked at his reflection skeptically. "Why do you want to know?"

"Just wondering."

She hummed but didn't pursue the matter. Instead, she turned into a parking lot and set the stick shift, pulling the keys out. She twisted around to look at Wally, who didn't react at all. "I just need to run inside real quick to turn in an article. You want to come in or stay here?"

"Stay here," he replied automatically.

Iris sighed, casting her nephew imploring eyes. When Wally didn't so much as acknowledge her, she gave up and pushed open the door. "I'll be right back," she insisted, running inside the building in front of the car that read 'CENTRAL PRESS'.

The quiet was all-consuming. Wally felt like crying.

How did Renegade do it? Wally couldn't see Renegade finding enjoyment in killing. Even so, the assassin still had no emotion regarding it - or if he did, he hid it too well. Yet, he did _have_ emotion. Wally had seen it. Solemnness when the redhead first saw the assassin, panic when-

Wally's throat constricted. He quickly changed his train of thought.

Was it worth it? It was a suffocating waiting game that he played. He was obviously going to be caught. How could he not be caught? Wally was no experienced k-

Wally just had no experience. And he had done it in broad daylight. On national television.

Was it even _possible _for Wally not to be caught? He was only fifteen. He didn't want to go to jail for the rest of his life. He wanted a future. He didn't want to be-

He didn't want to be like Renegade. Alone, sad, and a prisoner. He didn't want to end up like him.

There was a vibrating buzz against the front seat. Wally didn't move for a second, intent on ignoring it. His bones felt very much rooted to his spot beside the back window. But as the buzzing went on, he figured that he really had nothing better to do and reached into the front seat for his aunt's cell phone. Barry Allen was written across the top. His breath caught.

"Uncle Barry?" Wally almost whimpered into the phone as he slowly leaned back into his seat. His heart hurt. It hurt so much that he felt tears pricking at the corner of his eyes and he suddenly couldn't breathe. It was over. It was all over for him. Barry was calling to tell Iris to drop Wally off at the station because Barry was an amazing forensic scientist, of course he had figured it all out. Of course he had figured out that Wally-

"Walls?" Barry replied, surprised. Wally's heart skipped a beat. "Jeez, kid, where'd your aunt leave her phone this time?"

Was Barry faking it? Wally debated that for a moment, gripping the phone case tightly in his fist as Barry voiced his confusion. No. Barry was a terrible liar. He'd be too mad at Wally to pretend to be light-hearted, anyway.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed the phone closer to his ear. "In the car. She went to drop off some articles at work," Wally replied, and he had to pause for a moment afterwards to re-evaluate what he had said. He was nervous. He knew that. But he wasn't stuttering. Why? He was supposed to be getting eaten alive by guilt. Guilt would make him stutter, make him cry, make him scream and feel terrible for lying to his uncle. Guilt would kill him.

"Dang it. Look, when she gets back, can you ask her to call me?" Barry asked with a sigh.

"Why? Did Deathstroke survive?" the teenager answered, perhaps a little too eagerly. Barry didn't seem to notice.

"Woah, straight with the interrogation, eh? Yeah, that _killer _got locked up on an island. Can't tell you where, but he'll be there a while. That isn't why I need to talk to her, though," rambled Barry.

"Then why do you need to?" Anxiety. Anxiety gnawed at his gut, at his thoughts, at the fingers that clenched the phone.

"It's just so weird," his uncle groaned. "But I need to find out if her reporter buds can send some videos of Deathstroke getting shot over to the police station. I don't know how, but everything we have got deleted. Hacked, probably."

There was no way. Wally fought to keep his mouth from dropping as he agreed to his uncle and closed the line. He was still staring ahead, not daring himself to be so hopeful, when the car beeped and Iris ran up and unlocked the doors. She sat herself down with a huff and twisted to look at him curiously.

"Hey, you alright?" his aunt inquired slowly.

Wally forced himself to snap back to attention. He offered her a brilliant smile, and her eyebrows shot up her forehead in surprise. "Totally. By the way, Uncle Barry asked me to tell you to call him. You left your phone in the car."

Iris nodded hesitantly. "Alrighty, then," she laughed, shaking her head in disbelief at her nephew's rapid change in mood as she held her hand out for her phone and dialed Barry's number.

"Hello?" she asked into the phone not moments later. Wally waited with baited breath, forcing himself not to bounce in his seat. "What?" the woman exclaimed, leaning over her steering wheel as her eyes widened. "How is that possible? No! No, our copies got stolen, too. I _just _sent an email to the Commissioner to see if he had anything that _we _could use."

Wally squealed. Iris paid him no mind. She figured out that she had a strange nephew long ago.

That was when Wally discovered that he didn't feel guilty at all. Just nervous. Nervous for being _caught. _

Because, in all honesty, Wally was glad that he had been the one to free Renegade. He didn't feel like a criminal. He felt like a _hero._

* * *

It took a few days.

Dick was still getting over the...shock. Was that the right word? It felt too petty to be the word that described his situation. It was as if everything he had learned in the last five years of his life had been turned inside out. Really, it had.

Everything he had learned. The night after Deathstroke was locked up in Guantanamo Bay (Dick would have preferred starting up Alcatraz again and putting the man there as the only inmate, but it was the second best option that didn't result in sending him to Asia), Dick even found himself returning back to the man's haunt on the outskirts of Central. It was only when he stood outside and noticed that the security cameras no longer followed his movements that he realised there would be nothing there. He woke up the next morning in the cellar of a nearby bar, refusing to return to the empty haunt after all that had happened, expecting to hear Slade's crackling voice through the communicator demanding him to return.

He knew he had work to do, though. The day before, after throwing all of the smoke bombs in his arsenal to disappear as thoroughly as possible, Dick had run with his mysterious saviour straight into the nearby forest. Cliche, but his grappling hook would be too noticeable. Once obscured by the leaves, Dick had spun around and ripped the balaclava from the other boy's face.

Wally.

Dick hadn't waited for Wally to explain himself before stripping the boy of most of his black clothing, throwing some of the extra clothing that he had in his pouch for Wally to change, and fleeing. He had taken the clothes with him and didn't realise that it was because he hadn't wanted Wally to get found out until he was alone in the cellar again with his thoughts.

The day after, Dick got right down to the work of erasing Wally's tracks.

It was surprisingly difficult, considering everyone in Central got a different video and put it on a different website, and most of it involved guess and check, but Dick eventually managed to delete every single one. Hacking and red flagging almost every Instagram and Tumblr account belonging to a Central citizen took a good chunk of time from his life that he'd never get back, but it was worth it. If Dick had to see another frame of him getting his ass kicked by his ex-mentor, he wouldn't know what he'd do.

That, added with the amount of time that Dick spent mentally picking flower petals and wondering if Wally would ever want to see his face again, caused Dick to be a number of days late in returning to Wally's house.

Evening had fallen by the time that Dick silently slid the window of Wally's bedroom open. He wasn't in his room, and Dick could only assume that he was somewhere else in the house as the assassin crept around the space. He awkwardly stood around for a few seconds, staring at the comic book laid face down on Wally's pillow, before deciding to sit on the bed and open up its pages.

That was when the door chose to open. Dick tensed, not moving his eyes from the comic pages as he could only hope that the door had not been opened by a family member of Wally's. The situation would be particularly difficult to explain. After a few heartbeats, though, filled with the loud breathing of someone standing at the door, the room was softly closed off again.

Dick looked up. The redhead that he had hoped to see stood at the foot of his bed, looking intently at the ex-apprentice. After a moment, Dick closed the comic book and slid it onto Wally's nightstand, eye contact with the teenager never breaking.

"S'up, Renny?"

Out of everything that had happened, that was the last thing Dick expected to hear. He stared blankly, uncomprehending. Wally tilted his head and _smiled. _"Well?" the redhead prompted. "You're not Renegade anymore, are you? Never were. Not in my opinion. If you wanted to be Renegade, I can't see why you'd go through all the trouble that you did on Christmas." Dick could see plenty of reasons for fighting Slade, even if he had wanted to be Renegade. But Wally's optimism probably prevented the redhead from seeing that.

His reasoning was true, anyway.

"Why did you help me?" Dick asked, choosing to ignore what Wally had said.

Wally didn't even seem to think about his answer. "You were the one who deserved to win."

"I'm not some victim, Wally," insisted Dick. "I'm not the innocent one. I'm a killer, too."

"_Were," _Wally stressed, before frowning. "Were. Right? Were a killer?"

Dick paused, which only seemed to agitate Wally. "Yeah," he finally answered, quietly looking at his hands. "Were."

"Renegade's a killer," Wally said as he walked up beside Dick. The ex-apprentice was astonished to feel the bed dip under the redhead's weight as he joined Dick's side. Where in the world did Wally get his confidence from? "And you're not a killer. Therefore, by the Geometric Law of Deduction, you're not Renegade."

Dick narrowed his eyes at the other. "If I'm not Renegade, then what am I?"

Wally seemed to hesitate there, unsure of what consequences his actions would bring. But he was impulsive, and Dick decided that he really should have known that as the teenager reached forward and grasped the edge of Dick's domino mask.

Then, he peeled it away. Wally stared straight into Dick's blue eyes, view unobscured for once. Dick could only feel vulnerable, exposed, and with the sudden need to fill the silence with a word that he hadn't said in a long time. "Dick. I'm Dick."

That was when Wally realised something extraordinary. He hadn't been viewing the mask as a person. That mask wasn't a person and it didn't connect as one. But without it, with those eyes that crinkled awkwardly, Wally noticed a fact that he should have noticed before.

Renegade was only a boy. Like him.

Wally's smile grew wider as something exploded nearby and Dick jumped, instinctively grabbing Wally and shoving him down. He shielded the other with his body, but it took him a moment to figure out where the explosion even came from. Wally, flattened on the covers with the ex-assassin crouched over him, gestured with his eyes towards the window. Dick saw the lights reflecting over Wally's face and freckles, and when he looked up, he saw the same colours dancing across the sky. Wally laughed at Dick's stunned expression.

"Happy New Years, Dick," said Wally.

And the meaning, for once, rang true.

* * *

**A/N: And with that, the end of Maybe You Think Killing. I so very much hope everyone enjoyed! I had a lot of fun writing this (for some reason, my favourite part of this chapter was when Wally was in the car, though I haven't figured out why), and it helped me get the hang of writing a little bit in between rounds of homework and rehearsal. Because this helped me practice with managing my time, too, I'm already working on another multi-chapter (which will be significantly longer). The summary is at the bottom of my profile, among other summaries of other stories I occasionally begin sketching out. Which story it is, though, you'll have to give your best guess.**

**Finally, a big thank you to all of those who reviewed - your comments have made me so happy! (I don't know how else I can express my gratitude - it makes all the time spent on this completely and totally worthwhile).**

**See you guys soon.**


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